Sunday, February 10, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Freshman Vaughn Gray came off the bench to score 11 points for Don Bosco Prep, which advanced to the Jambo semifinals with a 73-56 win over Englewood at Ramapo College.

MAHWAH – Don Bosco Prep is the two-time defending Bergen County champion, this year's No. 2 seed and a team with all of the tools to make it three in a row. The Ironmen are deep, they are talented, they focused and they know how to finish a game. And it is a good thing, too, because Englewood gave them one on Sunday in the quarterfinals of the Jambo on Sunday at Ramapo College.

Dante Drakeford's tap in of a missed shot with 3:57 to go in the third quarter gave 10th-seeded Englewood a 38-36 lead. It also gave Don Bosco Prep a kick in the pants.

Kyle Smyth's fastbreak dunk got the Ironmen back even and it kicked off a 10-0 run that reestablished Bosco's air of invincibility. The Ironmen turned that two-point deficit in the third quarter into a 73-56 win and a spot in the Final 4 next Saturday when they will play third-seeded St. Joseph Regional at the Rothman Center on the campus of FDU.

David Mofunanya (3) and Englewood had to fight for every point.

"We were able to force them to come out and play us a little bit and then spread the floor. We were able to get to the rim, get layups and I thought that was the biggest difference," said Bosco head coach Kevin Diverio. "I thought we stuck to our game plan pretty good. The main thing was to limit them in transition, which I thought we did a pretty good job of. We didn't want them to get out and get easy baskets."

Englewood, which had won eight games in row coming in and worked so hard possession by possession to hang in the game for two-and-a-half quarters, just may have simply run out of gas. Bosco ran nine players in the first half, and nine good players at that, while Englewood lost the services of Drakeford to early foul trouble and were stuck with a rotation of six.

"We just couldn't sustain the energy," said Englewood head coach Gerald Akridge. "I thought our kids played well until we made that run [in the third quarter] but after that, that was it. Our guys were battling on the boards -- up and down, up and down – and it kind of took our legs away when we needed them. You could name a bunch of reasons, but really you don't have to say more than [Don Bosco] is a good club."

Georgio Milligan scored 14 of his 18 points in the second half and was named Bosco's MVP.

Indeed it is. When a team can pull players like Brandan Beckford and Vaughn Gray off the bench to played extended minutes and can rotate three guard likes Georgio Milligan, Smyth and LoRusso and add Max Brewer into the mix, the Ironmen present a myriad of problems. They can go big, they can go small, they can go athletic and they can go like [heck].

"We were prepared for anything going into this game. We knew they were going to make their runs, they are too good a team not to, but practiced on just keeping our composure. When they got the lead there [in the third quarter] we took it right back," said LoRusso. "We knew we had an advantage in our guards today with me Georgio and Kyle. Unfortunately Georgio got in foul trouble, but Max Brewer came in off the bench and it was a good game for everybody."

And that went for the effort on both ends of the floor as Bosco held Englewood's two 20-point scorers, David Mofunanya (team-high 11 points) and Naeem Carter, to a combined 19 points. Josh Jones added 10 points for the Maroon Raiders and Drakeford put up all 7 of his points in the second half as Englewood was held under 60 points for the first time this season.

Josh Jones finished with 10 points for Englewood.

Bosco was so balanced and so deep that five of its players finished in double figures and two of them – Beckford and Gray – were not even starters. Milligan bounced back from his early foul woes to score 14 of his game-high 18 points in the second half. Beckford, who put an exclamation point on the win with a dunk on the baseline with 2:20 to play in the game, finished with 15 points, Smyth added 14, LoRusso had 13 and Gray put up 11.

"I was real happy with the way Beckford played, Georgio had a huge second half for us and AJ played well," said Diverio, whose team is now two wins away from its third straight Jambo title and its fourth in five years. "It was a real good team effort."

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